Black Arrow
by Unique .F
Summary: Jack saves Sandy from Pitch's nightmare arrow, using a giant ball of ice. (twoshot) (Not strictly Winter Wonderland but I like to think it is.)
1. Chapter 1

**Because Winter Wonderland is the most adorable and huggable of all the ships...**

* * *

_Frost lances up lashes of glittering golden dream sand, trapping it eternally in a icy wall that curves into a gentle dome over Jack's head, over Sandy's body protectively. Blackness blooms, a deadly rose, against the ice-wall, shadows writhing hungrily underneath it, reaching towards the precious star residing in the centre, voracious for his brightness. Jack scowls and the dome becomes a ball with fractures of electric frost crackling through it, with them trapped inside, enclosed, protected. _

_Hazy swirls of dream sand hang motionlessly around them, they are as shocked as their master; honey gold eyes are fixed widely on the frost spirit. Time stops._

* * *

"Right on time, Sandy," Jack says to the sky, stepping lightly over the telephone wires, icing them up nonsensically as he balances, relishing the thrill and knowing even if he did fall, Wind will catch him. Jack is whisper-light, not even bending the wires slightly as he wanders over them.

Curls of dream sand form graceful arabesques around him, and Jack laughs out loud as he trails his fingers through the glittering strands, and sees dolphins leaping playfully around him, their wide, wide gold eyes glinting with unrestrained joy at seeing the frost spirit. Jack grins back at them. He loves this time of night, when Sandy's creations come to play in the dark skies and light up the world of children's dreams.

He catches a bit of sand in his palms, drops to sit on a rooftop as he plays with it in his hands. It feels warm, warm like a mother's hug and fresh cakes from the oven, warm like the dreams Jack sometimes has, a half-remembered smile, soft eyes. It flexes tenderly over his fingers and darts along his wrists, up his arms, laughing, forms a pair of thick golden spectacles over his eyes before dissipating and swirling off to join the rest.

Jack smiles. He wonders if Sandy even knows what his sand does when Jack finds it.

* * *

_The black sand arrow is broken by the ice walls, and it is just Jack and Sandy, in the centre of the massive hollow snowball. A weak question mark forms over Sandy's head, Jack laughs. _

_"Didn't think I'd let you get shot, did you?"_

* * *

"Can someone explain what's going on?" Jack demands furiously, thoroughly irritated by these Guardians now. The little golden man- Sandy- and it is the first time Jack has ever seen Sandy face to face before, not simply played with his sand and hoped he didn't notice- steps forward eagerly with a bright smile. Images form over his head faster than Jack can follow.

"Thanks little man, not really helping," Jack says, and Sandy slumps. Jack feels as if he has not only kicked a puppy but proceeded to break all four legs, thrown it in a bag and drowned it.

* * *

_They can hear Pitch swearing and the Guardians shouting outside the dome, but all they can see is swirling, distorted images that don't quite penetrate the thick ice. Sandy glances at Jack, shrugs slightly, and then smiles so widely, Jack feels his whole soul light up in response. Sandy does not only smile with his mouth, but with the happiness in his eyes, the crinkles in his cheeks, the glow that brightens every grain of sand around him. _

_A shy image forms over the desert-brown spikes of hair dashed with gold, an upraised palm like drivers show to one another as they pass each other on roads. _Thank you.

* * *

_"Everyone _loves the sleigh," North mutters smugly, but Jack is too busy wondering how fast it goes. He hops up on it and hopes he doesn't look too eager.

Bunny flops, disgruntled, in the back, heavily reluctant, but Sandy is grinning unabashedly, clearly delighted. Jack nods at him, feeling privately satisfied- trust grumpy Bunny to hate an _awesome _sleigh, and Sandy to love it.

The sleigh shoots forward, and Jack whoops with glee, Sandy claps his tiny hands joyfully and throws them in the air- he needs no words or noise to express his happiness.

Bunny groans and sinks into the footwell.

* * *

_"You're welcome," Jack replies, smiles back slightly weakly- he cannot help but think of what would have happened if he had been a beat slower. At the answering smile, faded though it is, Sandy literally brightens and throws his little arms around Jack in a spontaneous hug, although he can only encircle a small amount of Jack's waist._

_Jack freezes, taken aback when the spirit does not phase through him. It takes him a moment to adjust, and then he awkwardly pats Sandy's head. The Sandman is so short, even hovering on his sand cloud, he only reaches Jack's stomach. His hair is soft and fluffy, like Jack imagines candyfloss to feel. _

* * *

Pitch looms, dark and threatening, over all of them at the deserted Tooth Palace, which is slowly crumbling, his sand horse at his side. Grains of polluted dream sand fall between his long, elegant fingers as he mockingly holds out his hand, and Jack recognises it, glances at Sandy.

The Sandman looks at his own sand, then glares at Pitch in fury, his hands balling into fists of rage. The soft eyes like melted gold harden into fire, and Jack honestly does not understand how Pitch does not quail at Sandy's expression of hatred.

He feels his own spike of sudden dislike for Pitch; he had felt an awkward neutrality towards the dark spirit, he had not known the guy, after all, but...Jack thinks of dream sand dolphins, graceful giants, manta rays, shoals of fish, mermaids, dragons, sand ships and dinosaurs, darkening, corrupted into twisted versions of themselves with nothing to show of their true master but their bright, bright feverish eyes. That cannot happen.

* * *

_Sandy's face pops up, still smiling at Jack, and the winter sprite feels frost spread over his cheeks at the sheer happiness in Sandy's expression. The Sandman feels so very warm- Jack longs to be enveloped in that heat completely, and it is such an awkward thought he coughs and avoids Sandy's suddenly confused gaze. _What the hell, Jack? _he asks himself. _

_A question mark forms over Sandy's head, though there is a teasing glimmer in those gold eyes that suggests the elder knows exactly what Jack is thinking. Jack wonders sourly how much Sandy gets away with by virtue of looking innocent and adorable. _

* * *

"Knock 'im out, Sandy," Bunny commands, and Sandy turns on Jamie, smacking his fist into his palm threateningly, and Jack has to hold back a snort of laughter. It probably says something that Sandy's first thought is to use violence to punch a small child into unconsciousness. Not that Jack hasn't had the odd moment when all he wants to do is smack the irritating brats- but come _on, _the Sandman- bringer of good dreams? Cute, cuddly Sandy?

* * *

_The ball teeters. Jack blinks, startled, grabs hold of Sandy's shoulders (it feels like holding handfuls of super-heated silk covered in fine grains,) who is smiling so widely Jack thinks his cheeks might split apart. Jack shoots him a worried glance. The ball wobbles, and then, slowly- it begins to fall._

_Jack yells in alarm, but Sandy makes a gentle sound that sounds like desert sands and wind chimes that Jack suddenly recognises is laughter- laughter of pure joy- as they plummet from the sky thousands of feet up. In a breakable ball of ice shards. _

* * *

The ball of dream sand bounces wildly off doors, walls, picture frames, and Jack can't help but laugh as each of the Guardians is treated to a face full of glittering golden dream sand, sand images forming above their heads as they fall immediately asleep. Jamie flies into the air- Jack directs the wind to send him sailing into Sandy's arms, who catches him and shakes his head lightly, knocking him out as sand falls from his hair.

He glances at Jack sheepishly. Jack is too busy trying to calm the stitch of laughter in his side.

* * *

_"Oh no- Sandy!"_

_Sandy is still laughing, there is only glee on his face as he rolls around in the spinning ball of ice like a small golden hamster in his wheel. The comparison makes Jack snort despite himself. He tells this to Sandy, who shoots him an honest-to-god offended look and deliberately cannons into him on his next revolution, sending them both flying, rattling around in the ice globe._

_Despite the direly _serious _situation, Jack and Sandy are laughing like fools._

* * *

"Come on!" he shouts and rockets out of the window after the Nightmare. His grip on his staff is firm, he is full of resolution. Sandy appears beside him, bright gold and a light in the darkest of times and Jack feels a warmth settle over his heart when Sandy smiles at him. The dreamweaver looks at both guilty and excited, like a kid sneaking out early in the morning before his parents are awake to play in the snow.

Jack chases the Nightmare, and eventually freezes it across the ground. He is poking the remains curiously, admittedly impressed despite himself. It looks beautiful- shadow trapped against stone and gilded with spirals of ice. He is unaware of the malingering shade behind him until a cold voice ringing with three-hundred years of loneliness and the chill of a frozen lake says in plain befuddlement and an undertone of irritation, "Jack Frost?"

* * *

_They are nearing the ground now, they must be, and Jack is bouncing off the walls of the snow globe, out of control. Whipping dream sand falls repeatedly into his eyes, and if Jack wasn't potentially falling to his death he might have been overtaken in it's gentle lull, slipped into a dream of starlight and revolving galaxies, burning suns. As it is, he catches flashes of a world so richly envisaged in Sandy's imagination he is caught in wonder, eyes wider than North's baby doll, as powerful creatures stride across his sight accompanied by roaring dragons with scales dark as night and twice as noble, of stars burning through an endless blackness faster than any eye could see, the delicate power of wishes, round globes of planets whirling past like spinning tops. _

_He glimpses ebony-skinned women layered in bright red silks swaying to fearsome war beats that reverberate in Jack's eardrums like long-forgotten war cries from a legion of handsome chain-mailed soldiers holding pikes with blades of moonbeams, smiling faces with white teeth and a lonely man standing at the edge of a galaxy dancing with his daughter, laughter like wind chimes in the air. Butterflies spin madly for Jack, and he sees imprints of himself- a snowy foot print outside a child's house, eyes like the depths of glaciers lit by the sunlight, a thousand beams refracted in their endless prisms, a dancing heart that brings swirls of frost to decorate every window in strands mixed with softly glittering sand, pale fingers tugging through his sand, fingertips skating over his shoulder blades._

* * *

Back to back, they stare as Nightmares erupt from every shadowy corner, snorting and tossing their heads, nostrils gaping hungrily as they draw in the scent of Jack's fear. Their bright gold eyes are feverishly shining, like lamp lights out of each shadowy face. Their hooves screech against the asphalt like claws, and shadows skitter up the walls madly like moths drawn to campfires. A victorious snarl forms on Pitch's face, he looks half-mad, his eyes alight with power-high, his twisted yellow teeth bared in a sickening, insane grin.

Sandy grabs Jack's arm, and Jack feels heat blossom from the touch, and then they are rocketing into the sky faster than Jack has ever gone, outdistancing the hordes of Nightmares and drawing them away from the breakable human houses and their precious occupants. They cannot let Pitch harm the children...

* * *

_They are close enough to the ground that Jack can see the blurry outlines of houses growing ever closer. He is pressed against the back of the snow globe now, Sandy beside him still beaming, his eyes on fire. The globe is only speeding up as gravity works on it, forcing it faster and faster as it does so. _

_"We're gonna die!" Jack shouts, turning his face with difficulty to look at his companion. Sandy nods gleefully and blows Jack a kiss. Jack swears he must have snorted some dream sand, because he starts laughing again and cannot stop._

* * *

Jack falls limply out of the sky, his eyes wide. Arms encircle his waist and Tooth takes his weight, pulling him to the safety of the sleigh. "We have to help Sandy!" Jack shouts desperately, and North nods grimly.

He can see Sandy as a disc of gold surrounded by a maelstrom of black, Pitch rising above him like a tall dark pillar. Jack's eyes narrow. Pitch is doing something with his arms...drawing back, as if he were _shooting an arrow._

"No!" Jack howls, and flings himself off the sleigh and onto the Wind. The wind whips him into the sky and Jack shoots forward with only one goal in his mind.

* * *

_They are past the roofs of the houses, falling ever closer-_

* * *

The arrow leaves the Nightmare King's hands and heads straight for Sandy's unprotected back-

* * *

_Closer-_

* * *

Jack is powering through hordes of Nightmares, his eyes fixed determinedly on the golden shape of the Sandman-

* * *

_They were going to hit-!_

* * *

Slamming into Sandy's side, Jack raises his staff-

* * *

_the world explodes in gold._


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry if you haven't read the books- but I couldn't resist the Inner Pooka.**

Tooth's heart stopped.

Jack had leapt out of the sleigh and raced away at full speed to attack Pitch's minions for himself. His lithe body was borne away swiftly by the bitter blast of freezing cold wind he had summoned to aid him, buffeted like a frosted leaf in a winter storm. It certainly looked thunderous from where Tooth crouched, her hands gripping the edge of the sleigh and her pink eyes wide with fear.

Pitch's roiling mass of Nightmares coalesced around Sandy's bright golden disc of light like a chaotic maelstrom, completely obscuring any sight of the Sandman himself. The only parting was when Sandy's golden whips cracked out, like lightning, clearing a path that lasted for nothing more than a beat of a second before it was occupied by the hungry shadows again.

It was in one of those split-second paths Jack disappeared into, and Tooth yelled his name, searching the twisting shadowy mess for any sight of a flash of frost. They didn't even know if Jack was strong enough to hold Pitch off- he might be corrupted, his pale skin turned ashy and his beautiful teeth fanged and ugly. The thought was enough to make a claw of icy dread grip Tooth's heart, although she did her best to fight it off. Fear only made Pitch stronger.

Suddenly, it happened.

Frost _exploded _out from the epicentre of the spinning disc of shadows, and Tooth saw Pitch where he was standing stagger as electricity charged through the Nightmares, dispelling them into wisps of poisonous smoke. A milky blue cupola formed over a lone plate of gold, fragile at first, but then rapidly extending, hardening into a diamond globe held up in the air like a comet plucked straight from space and placed delicately above Burgess. The wraithlike shadows fled from it, and Tooth gaped, forgetting to close her mouth as the air around the globe cleared.

The shell was too thick for Tooth to see anything other than bright flashes of golden dreamsand, which at least assured her that Sandy was well. Jack had gotten there in time...But Pitch was looming, clearly furious, a dark snarl on his face as he pulled his nightmare sand scythe from the darkness and attacked the ice and dreamsand ball in an attempt to crack it.

North roared a hoarse-throated battle cry and withdrew both sabers as the reindeer thundered towards the Nightmare King, who turned to face them, a contemptuous smirk on his thin lips.

"Ready to play, _Guardians?" _he mocked. "It seems as if your new _friend _and your dear Sandman have decided they have had quite enough _fun _for one day." He laughed, and with one hand, raised a mass of shadows that crawled wetly across the globe's surface, sluggishly, like wet ink. "Quite enough," he repeated, and his gimlet eyes glinted metallic in the crackling light.

"Stop this, Pitch!" North shouted.

Pitch only laughed at them, and then made a sharp downwards gesture.

Tooth watched, her heart in her mouth, as the globe teetered once, twice- and then began to plummet towards the ground thousands of feet below them.

"No!" she screamed, and leapt impulsively out of the sleigh, her wings catching the air currents and becoming a jade blur as she sped towards Jack and Sandy. The ball was falling too fast! There was no way even Tooth's hummingbird wings could catch up in time.

Sandy could survive- he'd survived falling to the earth in the shattering remains of a shooting star after all, but Jack, a young, comparatively puny frost spirit with no believers to swell his strength...?

_"JACK!" _Tooth howled; somewhere, she heard Pitch's sinister laugh before he disappeared in a cyclone of shadows, but Tooth had no doubt he was still lurking nearby- the prickling chill of fear she could never suppress in his presence had not gone.

A herd of hungry Nightmares began forming sluggishly out of the wisps of black sand, putting themselves back together in often horrifying combinations. The horses had lost all of their elegant, dangerous beauty, and became sluggish things often missing legs, tails, half a head, had eye sockets that dragged like melting candle wax.

Tooth was forced to stop as a grinning jackal-headed creature rushed at her, it's twelve legs running out of tandem and giving it uncoordinated, lurching movements that abruptly reminded her of gamboling monkeys and their foul King. Pitch had used them against her before.

She bitterly cursed her lack of weaponry. Back then, she'd gone around with her two swords never far from her hips, but in the quiet centuries that had passed since Pitch's last attack she'd grown complacent.

But Toothiana was the warrior queen of the fairies, so she charged headlong at the Nightmare anyway with a war cry, her fists upraised. She might not be able to _kill _it without her swords, but she could certainly knock a few teeth out along the way.

Before she could get close enough, the Nightmare was suddenly knocked aside by a colourful explosion of pink- one of Bunny's grenade eggs. She heard North's booming laugh just before she felt his massive hand grab her arm and swing her into the sleigh.

"Were you really going to take on that Nightmare without any weapons, ya bloody drongo?" Bunny demanded from the backseat, where he was pelting approaching Nightmares with exploding eggs.

Tooth smoothed her feathers self-consciously. "I don't know what _else _you expected me to do, Bunny-"

North interrupted with a great shout, urging the reindeer to run faster. He cursed in Russian. "We are not getting to Jack and Sandy in time!"

"These Nightmares ain't helping, either, mate," Bunny snapped, hurling a boomerang at one particularly ugly Nightmare and ducking as his other came around.

Somewhere, Pitch laughed, and Tooth found herself gritting her teeth. Oh, if a single hair (grain of sand?) on Jack or Sandy's head was harmed, she would make the Boogeyman _hurt. _And perhaps she could do something about those awful teeth while she was at it. They really were a disgrace to the name of dental care.

The Nightmares were herding around the sleigh, biting at the reindeer's hooves and forcing them upwards. North was doing his best to cut down Nightmares that dared to come too close to the Guardians themselves, but he couldn't protect all of the reindeer.

An ape-like Nightmare suddenly clamped it's teeth sharply around one unlucky reindeer's neck, ripping through thick muscle and flesh as if it were paper. North shouted, and leapt onto the back of the nearest reindeer, only to quickly return to the safety of the sleigh as it was engulfed in shadows.

The reindeer were falling quickly, and the sleigh was beginning to tumble downwards, the remaining three reindeer unable to pull it by themselves. North directed the reindeer to run downwards, hoping to make a landing on one of the streets. Tooth peered over the edge and gasped. They were headed right for Jack's ball of ice!

"We're going to crash!" she yelled.

North shot her an offended look. "Am being experienced, da? We are not crashing."

"No, into _Jack!" _Tooth corrected crossly.

_"Shostakovich!" _

The sleigh had begun to spin now, wildly out of control, and Tooth could only look helplessly at the two flightless Guardians, who stared back at her wide-eyed.

"Get Sandy and Frostbite outta the way," Bunny ordered harshly, turning aside.

"Bunny-!" Tooth exclaimed- surely he didn't mean she would just _leave _them?

"And then move," Bunny told her flatly. He shared a grim look with North. "It's time for the inner Pooka." North nodded gravely.

_What? _Tooth blinked in confusion, but the next thing she knew, North had picked her up and thrown her out into the air. Her wings automatically snapped open and stopped her fall, but Tooth could only stare, bewildered, as Bunny unwrapped a single, chocolate egg, and raised to salute to North, who shouted, "Go, Tooth!"

* * *

"Aw, come on, Tooth, you don't expect me to really believe that, do you?" Jack demanded with a whine.

Tooth glared at him. The frost spirit was swathed in thick blankets, reclining comfortably on a bed decorated with candy canes and Christmas lights. There was a mug of hot cocoa on his bedside table and a small egg-lamp, courtesy of Bunny, which glowed blue and pink in calming tones. There was a fire roaring in the hearth and the windows were closed tightly against the blizzard raging outside.

All in all, it was rather homey and warm, two things Jack thoroughly disliked. Thankfully, it actually wasn't his room.

Sand drifted lazily in spirals around the two of them, glinting off every available surface. Small heaps of golden dreamsand formed and reformed into random shapes, and tiny golden dinosaurs and glittering golden fish swam contentedly in the air. Sandy had a tendency to shed dreamsand wherever he went, and his room at the North Pole was no different.

The Sandman himself was nothing more than a blanket-covered lump with a head full of wild golden brown spikes poking out, laying in the bed beside Jack and so deeply asleep nothing short of Pitch Black bouncing up and down on his head whilst threatening to plunge the whole world into darkness could make him stir. Not that they'd tried that, of course. The Guardians knew well enough by now that whenever something happened to Sandy it was better to just let him sleep it off.

She shuddered. The Caffeine Disaster was an incident engraved in everyone's memory.

Jack's arm closest to Sandy was suspiciously hidden under the covers, and Tooth couldn't hold back a small smirk at it's absence. Jack noticed and frost curled over his cheeks. Defensively, he snapped, "Well?"

"What?" Tooth replied innocently.

"Come _on, _'it's time for the inner Pooka'?" Jack complained. "_Seriously?_ That's so lame."

"You were the one who wanted to know what happened," Tooth reminded him, and Jack huffed. "As I was saying..."

* * *

Tooth turned and sped downwards, towards the falling ball of ice. It was far too close to the ground, and she _knew _she couldn't reach it in time. Through the thick ice, she could see nothing but gold, nothing of Jack.

Heart in her mouth, Tooth tried to reassure herself that surely, if something had _happened _to Jack- maybe he hadn't gotten out of the way of the nightmare arrow, and had been hit? What if he'd been turned into a fearling, and was fighting Sandy, right now, in that globe of ice? _No, _she couldn't believe that would happen, not Jack- the ice would have changed, melted, gone black, or _something. _

Behind her, she heard Pitch's laugh, wild, victorious, slightly insane, and an animal roar that sounded thoroughly unlike Bunny or North. Tooth closed her eyes tightly and tried not to think about what was happening to her dear friends in the falling sleigh. North and Bunny were tough. They'd handled Pitch perfectly fine long before they'd even met...

_But Pitch is stronger than you've ever seen him, since _that time. She remembered _that time _all too well, in the ruins of Punjam Hy Loo, Pitch, gloating, threatening to poison a little human girl into a Fearling Princess. _But he was defeated by her, in the end._

Tooth's hands balled into fists. She wouldn't let Pitch hurt Jack, or Sandy. Sandy didn't have any teeth, but he was still a dear friend of hers-

* * *

_"What?" _Jack interrupted, stunned. Tooth blinked, confused. Jack gesticulated wildly with his free hand. "He doesn't have _teeth?! _But that isn't right- I felt them!"

"Of course he doesn't, Jack," Tooth said with a touch of patronisation, "He's never been human-" the rest of Jack's sentence abruptly caught up to her, and Tooth felt her head feathers silently lifting in surprise.

Jack's cheeks turned so white they rivalled the blizzard outside, and he began babbling, "I meant- I _saw_ them, not felt, because that would mean I- yeah, _saw, _not felt, ha- um, not that I was looking- I mean I obviously _was _otherwise I wouldn't have seen them, but not like, _looking _for them, and anyways, I'm not the one who goes sticking their fingers into people they've never met's mouths!" he finished defensively, and Tooth had to raise a hand to hide a giggle.

"Of course," she asserted, perhaps a little too quickly, because the layer of frost on Jack's cheeks only thickened and he avoided her gaze. A snowflake formed and revolved absently over the still sleeping Sandy's head, and Tooth had to look away and think of rotten biscupids to stop herself from bursting out laughing at the absolutely mortified look on Jack's face. "I'll continue, then?" she asked teasingly.

* * *

-he was still a dear friend of hers nonetheless. And she hoped Jack would be too. He had a good heart, and _beautiful _teeth.

_Focus, Tooth, _she told herself sternly, shaking her feathers slightly.

She shot downwards like a arrow from a bow, wings buzzing madly. But Tooth still wasn't fast enough.

Time seemed to slow down around her as she shouted their names, her pink eyes widening with horror. Her eyes saw it before her ears heard it- the ball of ice touching the floor surprisingly gently in Tooth's slowed down world, when every second passed like an hour. Then it erupted upwards, jagged spears of beautiful ice spiralling up towards her like faery lances, Tooth watched, numb, as one particularly large part moved towards her, arcing gracefully, deadly point enough to skewer her. Transfixed, she stared at it, and that was possibly the only thing that saved at least her eyesight.

A golden glow spread out calmly at first, then with gathering strength from the wreckage. Tooth's eyes burned with the effort of trying to drag her stare away from the massive piece of ice and to the gold below, and she couldn't manage it.

A superheated figure was forming in the street, streams of gold ribboning down from the sky to form into a glowing golden ball with all the brightness of a miniature sun. From every corner of the world sand flowed- all over the world children woke from pleasant dreams with confused frowns on their faces, and bobbing silently on the ocean an entire island uprooted itself and formed a massive sand cloud which spiralled down to join it's master.

_Boom._

The world snapped back into real-time, and Tooth yelped. She jinked sideways, moving more on instinct than anything else, narrowly avoiding the spear of ice that shot directly through where she had been hovering a second before. From above, wooden splinters rained down from North's broken sleigh, and Tooth could hear roars that didn't sound good at _all, _but all she could do was gape.

The sand was glowing fiercely, obstructing all sight of the pair on the street, but Tooth found herself grinning in awe. "_Sandy," _she breathed, "_you are _amazing."

But the battle was not over yet, and Pitch had not gone. The wind suddenly whipped sideways, sending Tooth tumbling over herself, and the Nightmare King plummeted past her, his golden eyes fixed wildly on something behind Tooth, and the most horror-stricken expression Tooth had ever seen on a live creature.

Stomach icy with dread, Tooth mustered the bravery to turn her head to look- and her jaw dropped, risk to teeth be _damned._

A massive furry _rabbit _was falling out of the sky, his giant ears whirring like a helicopter, with six enormous arms, two clutching boomerangs, three exploding eggs, and from one paw hung North, yelling and waving his sabers, looking no bigger than a toy next to Bunny. _Bunny. __The Inner Pooka._

* * *

_"He grew arms!?" _Jack cried out, his blue eyes round like coins and former embarrassment entirely forgotten in favour of bewilderment.

Tooth nodded, thoroughly understanding Jack's disbelief. She could hardly make sense of it herself, and she'd been there!

"Oh my God." Jack whispered. "You're not joking." He glanced down at Sandy sleeping peacefully next to him with a deeply disturbed expression. "Is there any one of you that _doesn't _have some sort of...mind-bending power?"

"...No?" Tooth offered. "Well, North is a wizard- probably the best, by now, I think, -once he built this massive robot ten feet tall that could fly and swim!- and I can make my fairies, but I'm not sure if that counts..."

Jack went pale.

* * *

Even as she watched, dumbstruck, Bunny opened his mouth and from him came a ear-shattering ululation that seemed to drown out every other sound in the universe. As the echoes slowly died away, Pitch's screaming could be heard.

The grey-skinned shade's mouth was opening, and a thin high scream was all the sound he seemed to be capable of making. He made no effort to control his fall, and crashed painfully into the roof of a house, rolled onto the adjacent street, sprang to his feet and ran away as fast as he could, appearing to completely forget in his panic that he could teleport.

Tooth stared at the Pooka as he stopped beside her, massive ears whirring to keep himself in the air. "Alright, Tooth?"

Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. _"What." _she finally managed to choke out. _"was that."_

"Is happening when Bunny is eating chocolate!" North informed her helpfully, waving his sabers, and Tooth found herself laughing hysterically, because if she didn't laugh, she thought maybe she would cry, and North looked slightly ridiculous with his big red coat bunched around his ears from where Bunny's paw held the back of it.

"Sandy and Frostbite?" Bunny reminded them, and began flying downwards. Numbly, Tooth followed, still half convinced maybe she'd been hit in the face with some dreamsand, and it was all a very peculiar dream indeed. As they approached the street, the sand began to settle, coating the dull asphalt in a golden coat. A shining figure was visible in the very centre, and Tooth had to shield her eyes from looking directly at it.

When Bunny's feet touched the floor, however, the glow abruptly dimmed. The Pooka put North down, and he immediately headed over to the pair laying in the centre of the sand nimbus.

Jack's shape was distinguishable, still clutching his staff, but covered almost entirely in a soft down of dreamsand. He was sleeping softly, a quiet smile on his lips and the expression of utmost peace on his face.

And...connected to him by lashing ropes of dreamsand that evidently served where Sandy's arms were too short, nestled into the frost sprite's arms was a familiar round shape, head tucked under Jack's chin comfortably and spikes of wild hair falling gently against snowkissed cheeks, tiny fists balled in Jack's hoodie. Jack's staff-hand was thrown carelessly over Sandy's body, and his own had curved slightly, as if to enclose the Sandman. As he breathed, extending patterns of frost formed in Sandy's hair, only to melt a moment later from the still-glowing heat.

The conscious Guardians stared at each other awkwardly. This...had not been what they were expecting. _Jack and Sandy? _Tooth wondered, confused, and seriously thinking there was nothing more that could surprise her at this point.

"Ah," said North, finally. "They are safe. Da?"

They left it at that.

* * *

"...and then we took you back to the North Pole, and you were out for a couple of days, along with everyone in Burgess." Tooth finished.

"So...Sandy's dreamsand knocked everyone out but you guys?" Jack clarified, although there was a frost blush on his cheeks from her description of how the Guardians had found the two of them.

Tooth nodded and smoothed down her feathers absently. She smiled at Jack, and he returned the smile. Tooth couldn't resist sighing at those perfect teeth, and Jack laughed. "I'm sorry Jack," she said brightly, "but I have to be off. My fairies are in ever such a state!"

"Pitch gave them _back?" _

"Oh yes!" Tooth chuckled. "He turned up a day or two later with several cages with all my fairies in them and disappeared before we could say a word. I've never seen him so quiet!" Still laughing merrily to herself at the memory of Pitch's nervous face, Tooth zipped out of the window, waving one last time at Jack. She thought it best not to mention the liberal coating of dreamsand and faint burn marks they'd found on Jack's lips.

"Huh." Jack flopped back against the pillow, idly icing up a part of the headboard with an exhale. His hand, trapped under the blankets, flexed carefully, trying to restore feeling to numb fingers without disturbing his companion. It didn't work.

Sandy had wrapped both arms and legs around Jack's single arm, his head buried in the crook of Jack's shoulder and the bed. He was still very warm, although not as searing as he had apparently been when the Guardians had first brought them to the Pole. He felt soft, too, and often Jack found his thoughts wandering off down random directions- like wondering what it would be like hold Sandy tight, what those little soft hands would feel like on _Jack- _and he stopped thinking about that very quickly.

Cheeks burning- as much as Jack's ever did, anyway, Jack found himself thinking about some of Tooth's words. _He doesn't have teeth. _He scoffed. Sandy obviously did have teeth- Jack had seen them, gap-toothed in the Sandman's smile, and even, for a brief wild moment he wasn't quite sure was a dream or reality, had indeed _felt _them, rough on Jack's startled lips, in that half-second before they'd crashed.

But now Jack found himself possessed by an insatiable curiosity. And if it was one fatal flaw of Jack's, it was his curiosity. He managed to hold out for almost a whole minute before he found himself guilty reaching towards his sleeping companion with his free hand. _He won't know, _Jack reassured himself, _he's fast asleep. Tooth and I were talking for ages, and he didn't even stir. Just...a little look._

Hesitantly, his fingers brushed Sandy's still lips, slightly parted to allow for easy breathing, and Jack halted immediately, heart pounding against his ribs. He waited, guiltily poised, for someone to come rushing in and tell him off, but nothing happened. Slowly, hardly daring to breathe at his audacity, Jack hooked his finger under Sandy's lip and moved it carefully aside.

_Teeth. _"What?" Jack muttered, confused.

There they were, just as Jack remembered them, adorably gap-toothed. He pressed the pad of his finger against Sandy's gum, but it didn't give. Undoubtedly real.

Jack unconsciously leaned in to study the mysterious teeth better. He stared hard at the teeth- yes, they were there, but- what was that?

There was just a hint of more glitter to Sandy's teeth and tongue than there was to his lips. _Dreamsand, _Jack concluded triumphantly. _He imitates human features with dreamsand..._He looked closer still, trying to determine if there was actually a single part of Sandy that _wasn't _made out of dreamsand. Yes- there was definitely a subtle variation between Sandy's skin and the dreamsand of his robe.

Then Sandy's mouth closed around Jack's fingers, nipping just hard enough to hold them in place. Jack squeaked, feeling as if his entire body had suddenly been doused in boiling water. _Oh God. _Sandy's mouth felt like a furnace, and his tongue suckled sinuously at Jack's sensitive skin, delving to lap at the flesh between the fingers hungrily.

Jack's eyes flicked up to Sandy's face, and horror upon horrors, _Sandy was awake._

Hooded golden eyes stared intently back at him, the colour of molten metal, and a smile that was decidedly _not innocent _curved the adorable, cuddly, cute, severely _misunderstood_ Sandman's lips.

Jack whimpered. Sandy laughed silently, let Jack's fingers and arm free, yawned, and simply floated off the bed and towards the window.

"Hey!" Jack blurted. "Where are you going?"

Sandy threw him a look over his shoulder that had the frost melting right off of Jack's skin. He was aware of his hair becoming damp as the ice slowly revealed the natural brown.

_To spread dreams, _the images flashed above Sandy's head, and Jack nodded awkwardly, tongue-tied. Sandy smirked and blew Jack a dreamsand laced kiss.

"S'not fair," Jack slurred, immediately becoming drowsy. He was dimly aware of laughter that sounded like wind-chimes, before he fell into a deep, dreaming sleep. All of his dreams had a similar theme, that night.

_Teeth?_


End file.
